G00261766
Magic Quadrant for Enterprise File
Synchronization and Sharing
Published: 2 July 2014
Analyst(s): Monica Basso, Jeffrey Mann, Charles Smulders
The enterprise file synchronization and sharing market is maturing, which will
benefit IT leaders, and mobile and collaboration planners. EFSS capabilities
continue to standardize, forcing players to differentiate mobile content and
collaboration.
Strategic Planning Assumptions
By 2017, part of the enterprise file synchronization and sharing (EFSS) market will be absorbed into
adjacent markets (e.g., collaboration and content management).
By 2017, less than 10% of today's EFSS destination vendors will offer stand-alone products, and
the rest of the vendors will have been absorbed into adjacent markets, such as collaboration,
enterprise content management (ECM), mobility and storage.
Market Definition/Description
EFSS refers to a range of on-premises or cloud-based capabilities that enable individuals to
synchronize and share documents, photos, videos and files across multiple devices, such as
smartphones, tablets and PCs. File sharing can be within the organization, as well as externally
(e.g., with partners and customers) or on a mobile device as data sharing among apps. Security and
collaboration support are critical capabilities of EFSS to address enterprise priorities.
Beyond file synchronization, sharing and access, EFSS offerings may include different levels of
support for:
■
Mobility, with native apps for a variety of mobile smartphones, tablets, notebooks and
desktops, as well as Web browser support.
■
Security, for protection of data on the device, in transit and in cloud services (or servers), such
as password protection, remote wipe, data encryption, data loss prevention, digital rights
management (DRM), access tracking and reporting. Mature products ensure that files leaving
the sharing location are DRM-encrypted and only readable by those authorized to access the
data. Audit and compliance support are also present in complete products.
■
Administration and management, including integration with an Active Directory and
Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP) policy enforcement.
■
Back-end server integration, e.g., with SharePoint and other corporate platforms. Integration
is achieved through connectors (e.g., based on the Content Management Interoperability
Services [CMIS] standard and APIs).
■
Content manipulation, such as file editing, PDF annotations and note taking.
■
Collaboration, such as cooperative editing on a shared document using change tracking and
comments; and document-based workflow process support.
■
Simplicity and usability, with optimized UIs and interactions, such as file drag and drop and
file open in applications.
■
Storage, i.e., cloud-based EFSS services often include cloud storage as part of the bundle to
implement the EFSS repository. Software EFSS products, instead, may integrate with
repositories on-premises or be implemented with a separate repository on-site.
Typical architectures for EFSS offerings are:
■
Cloud: Corporate files are accessed via mobile devices, or shared and are stored in the
provider's cloud. Organizations that want to replace the personal cloud services adopted by
employees with an enterprise-class alternative under IT control, while preserving the user
experience and enhancing mobile collaboration, prefer the cloud method.
■
On-premises: The remote access, synchronization and sharing component is deployed onpremises and integrates with corporate data repositories, without file replicas. This method is
preferred by organizations under strict regulations about data storage.
■
Hybrid: The user and device authentication, security and search mechanisms are implemented
in the provider's cloud. Files and documents are kept in their original location, or can be in
third-party clouds. Organizations that want to simplify mobile users' access to corporate data
through the cloud, without creating data replicas in someone else's cloud, prefer the hybrid
method.
There are two types of EFSS offerings:
■
Destinations — Stand-alone products with file sync and share as a core capability, which
represents a new purchase for an organization.
■
Exensions — File sync and share capabilities added, and wrapped around established products
or applications — e.g., for collaboration, content management or storage. Organizations can
use extensions as part of the broader platform (see "Destinations and Wraparounds Will
Reshape the Enterprise File Synchronization and Sharing Market").
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Magic Quadrant
Figure 1. Magic Quadrant for Enterprise File Synchronization and Sharing
Source: Gartner (July 2014)
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Vendor Strengths and Cautions
Accellion
Accellion (www.accellion.com) is a private company based in Palo Alto, California. Founded in 1999,
it operates internationally, with offices in London and Singapore. The company originally served the
traditional file sharing and managed file transfer market. Since 2010, it has strongly refocused on
mobile file synchronization and sharing. Accellion has grown its visibility and track record,
particularly for midsize to large regulated or security-conscious organizations. Accellion's kiteworks
is a destination EFSS product, including access to enterprise content servers, with security and
management. Its latest release enhanced the user experience and architecture. The user experience
has been built with the mobile platform, rather than the PC, being the first design point. The
architecture employs a three-level model that separates the Web, application and data layers. The
kiteworks solution can be deployed as a private cloud on-premises (virtual appliance on-premises),
as a hosted cloud or hybrid cloud (mixing on-premises and hosted).
Accellion is a good fit for organizations prioritizing their EFSS initiatives for mobile experiences,
while ensuring data protection and compliance, particularly those operating in regulated markets,
such as financial services, healthcare and government.
Strengths
■
Accellion offers a modern mobile UI designed for touch-based interaction. It includes innovative
features, such as a touchscreen-based function to be visually dragged and dropped among
folders on a mobile device (via the kiteworks Move Tray).
■
Accellion offers a broad range of deployment options, including on-premises, private cloud,
hosted private cloud (via Amazon Web Services), public cloud and hybrid. The hybrid model can
combine the on-premises component with public and private cloud services.
■
Accellion has multiple compliance certifications in highly regulated markets, including
certifications for compliance with the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act
(HIPAA), the Federal Information Security Management Act (FISMA) and the Sarbanes-Oxley
Act.
■
Accellion supports sharing unlimited size files, e.g., files larger than 1,000GB (1TB) — a critical
feature for end users dealing with large media files, such as videos, source code or computeraided design (CAD; e.g., engineering groups, graphics shops and video/audio production
houses).
Cautions
■
Accellion's direct presence is limited outside the U.S., compared with some competitors;
however, it has multiple distributors, such as Dimension Data and Compuware, and resells on a
global level.
■
Occasionally, references indicated issues with allocated storage space after the initial purchase
— with the per-user storage space being reduced after signing the deal.
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■
Collaborative editing capabilities are not yet available within the kiteworks mobile application,
although they are under development for future releases.
■
Mobile management and policy enforcement capabilities in kiteworks are limited; however, they
can be enhanced through integration with enterprise mobility management (EMM) product
vendors, such as Good Technology and MobileIron.
Acronis
Acronis (www.acronis.com), founded in 2003, is a private company based in Woburn,
Massachusetts, with operations in Europe, the Asia/Pacific region, North America and South
America. Its core business is enterprise backup and recovery software (see "Magic Quadrant for
Enterprise Backup/Recovery Software"). Its mobility business unit originates from its 2012
acquisition of GroupLogic, a provider of file sharing and managed file transfer technology. Acronis
Access, the company's destination EFSS offering, combines the former GroupLogic's mobilEcho
and activEcho into a single product. The product supports access to enterprise content servers,
with security and management. It is normally deployed on-premises, but also can be in private and
public cloud models.
Acronis is a viable option for organizations that are prioritizing mobile devices to raise employees'
productivity, but have concerns about security and control. Acronis Access is a good choice for
companies that are looking for a backup/recovery solution, as well as core capabilities for file sync
and sharing, or already have investments in Acronis.
Strengths
■
Acronis Access supports audit logs for control and compliance, and is certified for HIPAA and
FISMA compliance.
■
Acronis has a strong base of global resellers and distributors to meet the needs of small or
midsize business (SMB) customers.
■
Customer experience is very positive based on reference feedback, especially for ease of use
and level of client service support.
■
Acronis has demonstrated a strong presence in regulated industries, such as financial services,
legal, energy and government, and the education sector.
Cautions
■
Integration capabilities are limited — e.g., CMIS support for broad back-end integration and
APIs for integration with third-party client applications are not available. Social collaboration
capabilities are limited.
■
There is no native Windows Phone client available yet.
■
No DRM capability is supported yet to protect shared documents once downloaded on an
unmanaged device (e.g., to revoke permissions to open, view and edit a document).
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AirWatch
AirWatch (www.air-watch.com) is headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia, and was founded in 2003. The
company has a worldwide presence with offices in all regions, and is a leading vendor in the EMM
market (see "Magic Quadrant for Enterprise Mobility Management Suites"). VMware (with
headquarters in Palo Alto, California, and founded in 1998) completed the acquisition of AirWatch in
February 2014. VMware is a leading vendor in virtualization technology, expanding its end-user
computing offerings with mobility. EFSS is a core element of VMware's vision of an end-user
computing environment centered on mobility, collaboration and the cloud. AirWatch's Secure
Content Locker (SCL) is an EFSS destination product with security and management capabilities,
available on-premises or in cloud instances. During the past 12 months, it has been sold mostly as
part of EMM deals.
AirWatch is viable for organizations that are considering EFSS as part of an enterprise mobility
initiative, and are making EMM decisions. It is also viable for organizations that have AirWatch's
master data management (MDM) deployment in place and plan to add basic EFSS capabilities, or to
provide a secure EFSS capability for employees on managed mobile devices.
Strengths
■
AirWatch's operations are mature, and cloud services run in the company's data centers in
Atlanta, Georgia.
■
AirWatch's customer base is global. The company has a strong presence in markets outside the
U.S., through local sales teams, channel partners and resellers. VMware's acquisition adds the
potential to scale up AirWatch's capabilities in sales, operations and local support.
■
SCL integrates with AirWatch's EMM offering and adds the benefit of rich administration and
user management capabilities. SCL will become part of VMware Horizon deals, replacing the
previous Horizon Files component.
■
SCL supports dynamic content watermark management. IT administrators can set rules for
applying watermarks to specific documents before sharing or editing the content, based on
users, groups or document types.
Cautions
■
SCL adoption so far has been limited mostly to initiatives to extend an MDM deployment with
EFSS capabilities, focusing on mobility priorities. The uptake of SCL as a destination EFSS
product for broader use cases, including collaboration and back-end integration, is still
immature.
■
Some references indicated occasional issues with product maturity and performance, limited
user friendliness and intuitiveness in the UI, lack of central administration for the EFSS
capability only, product delivery and support.
■
The separate pricing of SCL and reallocation of features in the new product have prompted
some MDM customers to question how original license agreements map to the new product.
The new SCL pricing model with three packages brings more clarity.
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■
EMC's parent relationship with VMware might raise concerns about the overlap between
AirWatch's SCL and EMC's Syncplicity that could trigger product rationalization scenarios.
VMware announced it will incorporate SCL in its Horizon product line, and plans further product
investments.
Alfresco
Founded in 2005 and headquartered in Maidenhead, England, and San Mateo, California, Alfresco
(www.alfresco.com) is an open-source ECM provider (see "Magic Quadrant for Enterprise Content
Management"). Alfresco can be deployed on-premises, in a public or private cloud, or in a hybrid
model. Alfresco considers file synchronization and sharing as basic features of a modern ECM
system. Its EFSS capabilities are integrated features of the broader ECM platform that cannot be
purchased separately; therefore, Gartner considers it an EFSS extension offering. Nonetheless, it
can integrate with other content repositories (for example, SharePoint) through CMIS.
Alfresco is a good fit for organizations that have deployed Alfresco as their ECM system, or are
looking to do so, and plan to add mobile access and EFSS capabilities to support extended use
cases.
Strengths
■
Alfresco provides server-to-server synchronization as a native capability.
■
Alfresco integrates EFSS capabilities with the ECM repository (e.g., the ability to surf
documents through tasks) to support business process workflows, management and
compliance.
■
Its global presence has grown through an increased number of diverse partners for consulting
and implementation.
■
The openness in its general approach provides more choices and opportunities for building
other capabilities on top of its platform.
Cautions
■
To use these file sync and share capabilities, an organization needs to have Alfresco as the
ECM platform in place.
■
Finding technical staff to support Alfresco was considered challenging by some references.
■
There is no dedicated client for Windows Phone or Windows 8.
Box
Box (www.box.com) is based in Los Altos, California. Founded in 2005, the company has
international presence, with a few offices outside North America. Box is among the most wellknown of the EFSS players in the market today. According to its April 2014, Securities and
Exchange Commission (SEC) Form S-1 filing in preparation for a $250 million initial public offering
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(IPO), Box has more than 25 million registered users, and more than 34,000 organizations that are
paying clients. To date, the company has been funded by multiple venture capital firms. Box
provides secure cloud-based file sync, share and collaboration services as freemium and premium
services. Box is an EFSS destination offering, available only in the public cloud. It focuses on
balancing a simple user experience with the security and administrative needs of the organization.
Box has gained attention in the enterprise market in response to employees adopting personal
cloud services, because of similarities with those personal cloud services that employees have
adopted in the usability, public cloud model, and the enterprise and security focus.
Box is a viable option for public cloud-friendly organizations that want to use file sync and share as
an opportunity to re-engineer business processes.
Strengths
■
The company's vision of cloud-based enterprise content and collaboration, business process
and workflow support is centered on cloud storage and secure EFSS capabilities. It provides
APIs for application integration, and customization of the UI. A mobile and optimized user
experience is core to that vision. Box aims to become the data backbone in the cloud for
business system applications.
■
Box has thousands of partners, including application developers, ECM vendors and hardware
vendors whose apps/systems are tightly integrated with Box's offerings. The OneCloud initiative
brings a variety of apps for content collaboration on mobile devices. Box has a strong channel
program with over 1,000 partners that resell and build Box solutions globally.
■
References indicated that Box offers a great user experience, ease of use and support; they
rated highly the API that enables integrating Box with internal business processes or building
third-party services.
■
Data protection is supported by filtering data containing sensitive information. Enhancements to
the cloud encryption capabilities will put customers in control of the encryption keys for data
stored in the cloud.
Cautions
■
According to Box's Form S-1 filing for a $250 million IPO, while its revenue grew to $124 million
in the year ending 31 January 2014, up from $59 million the prior year, it spent $159 million in
fiscal 2014. The size of last year's loss raises concerns in the market about the company's
financial performance. While high levels of investment are common at this stage for high-growth
SaaS vendors, Box will have to prove its ability to reach profitability in the near future.
■
Despite implementations in proprietary data centers, Box's offering is available only in a public
cloud model. No hybrid model for data storage on-premises is supported. The movement or
replication of corporate content in Box's cloud repository is not a viable option for some IT
organizations.
■
The freemium model may create problems when an organization decides to purchase Box as a
corporate service for employees. If they have associated a personal Box account to a corporate
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email address, the additional corporate Box account may create management issues. If a
personal account is migrated to a corporate account, it's the employee's responsibility to
migrate personal content into an alternative service so he doesn't lose his data when leaving the
company.
Citrix
Citrix (www.citrix.com) is a public company based in Santa Clara, California, and founded in 1989.
Citrix has more than 9,200 employees and has offices in North America and South America, EMEA
and the Asia/Pacific region. Citrix is a leading player in client desktop virtualization, workspaces,
collaboration and mobility. Citrix ShareFile is a destination EFSS product, originating from the
acquisition of ShareFile in 2011. It is based on a hybrid architecture, with synchronization and
sharing functions provided as a service. Corporate data storage can be kept either in the ShareFile
cloud repository, on third-party clouds or on-premises (through Citrix StorageZone). ShareFile has a
track record in regulated or security-conscious organizations aiming to enable secure mobile
access to corporate files. During the past 12 months, ShareFile's adoption has grown, particularly
as part of the broader Citrix EMM solution, as well as its integration with other Citrix products, such
as XenDesktop, XenApp and NetScaler. Although ShareFile is a stand-alone product, it is included
as an entitlement of Citrix XenMobile Enterprise Edition.
Citrix is a viable option for organizations seeking to enable EFSS capabilities across a broad enduser computing scenario, from mobile devices to virtual desktop clients (based on Citrix
XenDesktop and XenApp), and for organizations undertaking EMM investments.
Strengths
■
Citrix ShareFile is integrated with other Citrix offerings — such as Citrix Receiver, Citrix
XenDesktop and Citrix XenMobile — and is viable for bring your own PC (BYOPC) programs,
because it supports access from a virtual desktop client.
■
Enhanced content editing capabilities are supported as a result of the technology gained from
the Citrix acquisition of Byte Squared, whose product is now embedded into the mobile
application as ShareFile Editing.
■
It supports compliance with regulations such as PCI, HIPAA and Health Information Technology
for Economic and Clinical Health (HITECH). Customers give positive feedback on ease of
installation, quality of service, uptime and responsiveness.
■
Pricing plans, per user per month, are competitive. Citrix offers a 30-day free trial for
enterprises, and ShareFile QuickEdit for free.
Cautions
■
Customers report a lack of capabilities for editing and collaborating on documents in the Web
interface. Enhanced collaboration features, such as file check-in/check-out, are available for
SharePoint only. Support for additional data repositories is still missing.
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■
Despite the rich set of policy management and security features, DRM capability is not yet
supported to protect shared documents once downloaded on an unmanaged device — for
example, to revoke permissions to open, view and edit a document.
■
The support service level is not optimal for customers outside the U.S. for enhanced technical
support. Level 2 support is available only 24 hours, five days a week.
■
ShareFile is not deeply integrated into Citrix collaboration products Podio and GoToMeeting.
Dropbox
Dropbox (www.dropbox.com) is a private company based in San Francisco, California, and founded
in 2007. Dropbox is one of the largest file sync and share companies in the world. It reports that 300
million users have brought Dropbox into 4 million businesses. Dropbox is widely deployed in the
enterprise market, with millions of individuals using it in their workplaces. Dropbox provides a public
cloud-only storage and file synchronization and share service offered with the freemium model.
Initially focused on individuals, Dropbox recently has devoted considerable effort to develop
enterprise-targeted offerings. In 2013, the company launched Dropbox for Business, rolling out new
business features. These include administrator views of activity, separation of personal and
business data into different accounts, and remote wiping of business data from users' devices.
Dropbox for Business is considered an EFSS destination offering.
Dropbox is a viable offering for organizations that aim to enable modern collaboration in their
workplaces, worrying less about IT control and data protection, and concentrating, instead, on user
satisfaction.
Strengths
■
Dropbox is considered the benchmark for best-in-class ease of use.
■
Employees in most organizations use Dropbox unofficially, often in connection with tablets and
personal devices. Its large consumer base means that many employees will be familiar with it,
which should make deployment easy.
■
Fast and reliable synchronization is deployed to a large global customer base through several
methods, including LAN sync, delta sync and automatic bandwidth optimization.
■
A robust platform ecosystem, with over 300,000 apps, enables Dropbox integration in corporate
workflows (e.g., document editing, collaboration and content management).
Cautions
■
Enhanced security features, such as content-aware data loss prevention, built-in DRM
encryption, HIPAA and FISMA certifications are missing. However, levels of security for cloudbased data and service protection are available.
■
Only a public cloud architecture is available; a hybrid option is not possible.
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■
Administrator tools are relatively basic — e.g., administrators cannot define whether individual
files or folders can be shared, or with whom; a user cannot be on two Dropbox teams.
■
There is no native Windows Phone client available yet.
Egnyte
Egnyte (www.egnyte.com) is a private company, founded in 2008, and based in Mountain View,
California. Its focus is on the enterprise market, providing a destination EFSS product based on a
hybrid architecture that combines local on-premises storage with a public cloud repository. Egnyte
offers full colocation cloud storage facilities in the U.S. and Amsterdam, The Netherlands. Its
offering is available as: (1) Egnyte Cloud File Server, a public cloud-based solution that provides
enterprise administrative controls combined with end-user access, file sharing and mobility; (2)
Egnyte Storage Sync, which integrates the cloud with on-premises storage, providing continuous
synchronization; and (3) Egnyte Storage Connect, which provides remote access and sharing to
data held purely on-premises.
Egnyte is a viable option for enterprises that require flexibility as to where files are stored and which
files can be shared — for example, distributed workforces filed and/or shared at company
headquarters, remote offices and on mobile devices, and in heterogeneous and distributed onpremises storage environments.
Strengths
■
Egnyte is focused 100% on enterprise players; it has no consumer offering.
■
The solution integrates well with third-party back-end storage infrastructure, enabling mobile
access to a variety of on-premises or cloud repositories.
■
Egnyte is open to partnering where it does not have the skills in-house (e.g., partnering with Jive
to provide social collaboration). It partners with Google and others for enabling document
editing on mobile devices.
■
Egnyte supports server-to-server encryption to provide mirrored network drives at branch
offices, for example.
Cautions
■
Egnyte launched an on-premises model in April 2014, where the access layer and the data are
kept on-premises only, but it is still unproven in the market.
■
References reported support issues in Europe. Egnyte continues to invest in its facilities and
channel partnerships to further expand its capabilities and presence in the European region.
■
Egnyte is not FISMA-compliant, as it does not target government accounts.
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EMC
EMC (www.emc.com) is a public company founded in 1979 and based in Hopkinton,
Massachusetts. In 2012, EMC acquired EFSS vendor Syncplicity, which is now a business unit of
EMC. EMC has a presence in 86 countries through sales offices and partners, including distributors,
system integrators and service providers. EMC's portfolio includes storage, ECM and security.
Syncplicity is a destination EFSS product with security and management capabilities. Its delivery
model is hybrid, as storage can be on-premises or off-premises in clouds, using a policy-driven
hybrid cloud (StorageVaults). Syncplicity's unique approach to synchronization can be applied to
any folder in the file system, instead of the traditional "magic folder" approach that some EFSS
vendors take. Syncplicity integrates with EMC products Isilon, ViPR and VNX; third-party storage
arrays that support Network File System (NFS); and EMC Documentum through a connector based
on native APIs.
Syncplicity is a viable option for organizations looking for a hybrid EFSS architecture to provide
secure mobile access to a combination of on-premises and cloud repositories, especially if EMC
storage or content management products are present. Organizations that need "any folder"
synchronization should make this option a priority.
Strengths
■
The modern UI is designed in native mobile apps and desktop clients for an enhanced user
experience. Content editing and annotations for Microsoft Office documents are supported via
embedded functions in the mobile applications.
■
Standards-based APIs enable enterprise customers and software developers to extend
Syncplicity services and integrate them into business processes and workflows.
■
References indicated EMC is flexible, meets customers' specific requirements, and engages the
engineering and product development teams to identify improvements and new features. Most
references reported an easy and quick deployment experience, including single sign-on
integration and a smooth installation process.
■
Growing integration between Syncplicity and other EMC products will strengthen Syncplicity's
strategic role versus AirWatch's SCL, if rationalization scenarios materialize.
Cautions
■
Despite EMC's Ability to Execute in the market, Syncplicity has a limited presence and installed
base, compared with the competition, particularly in North America.
■
Some references reported a lack of open APIs on mobile devices to allow for easy application
development and integration with other mobile applications.
■
CMIS support for ECM integration is missing.
■
Integration with Microsoft Active Directory is limited to single-user accounts and is not available
for group accounts. Some references reported glitches in applying Active Directory permissions
to Syncplicity folders.
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Google
Google (www.google.com) is a public company founded in 1998 and based in Mountain View,
California. Google Drive is Google's file storage and synchronization service launched in April 2012.
It is cloud-based, available primarily through integration with Google Apps for Business. The service
is available through a freemium model for consumers, or on a per-month, per-user basis for
organizations. Google offers Google Drive to large and midsize organizations as part of its Google
Apps for Business suite through a global direct sales force. Technical specialists, as well as a
network of authorized resellers, support the offering. Small businesses are served through online,
self-service channels. Gartner considers Google Drive an EFSS extension, since its file sync and
share product is generally sold as part of a broader collaboration portfolio. Google Drive for Work,
which is sold independently of Google Apps for Business, was launched at the end of June 2014,
and, therefore, was not considered in this evaluation.
Google is a good fit for companies that are migrating email and other collaboration tools to the
Google Apps suite or prioritizing on cloud storage services.
Strengths
■
Google Drive has good integration with third-party cloud-based services, such as DocuSign and
HelloFax, and offers a software development kit for app developers.
■
Google Drive has strong integration with the Google Apps suite, including Google Docs,
Calendar, Mail and messaging, for editing and collaboration.
■
Google offers high availability through its data center expertise.
Cautions
■
Google Drive's administrator features are not as mature as other pure enterprise offerings in
areas such as reporting and control.
■
Its integration with on-premises content management systems and network drives is limited.
■
A native application for Windows Phone is not available.
■
Some references expressed concerns about the high frequency of updates that Google
delivers.
Hightail
Hightail (www.hightail.com), headquartered in Campbell, California, with regional offices in the U.K.
and Australia, was founded in 2004 as YouSendIt. The company changed its name to Hightail in
July 2013, to better reflect its broadening offerings. Hightail offers a public cloud-based file
synchronization and sharing solution only. According to the company, it has more than 45 million
registered users. Hightail's product is offered in a freemium model and is available in five European
languages. Key markets for Hightail include SMBs, as well as media and entertainment, legal,
advertising and marketing, and architecture/engineering segments. Growing its enterprise business
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has been a major focus for Hightail during the past year. Hightail's focus is on the file sync and
share market, and, therefore, is considered a destination product in this market.
Hightail is a good fit for organizations (excluding government) that are looking for a focused, easyto-use file sync and share solution.
Strengths
■
Hightail has a strong consumerlike look and feel because of its heritage, making adoption by
employees in an organization easy.
■
It has a significant international user base and is able to store data in the U.S., the U.K. and the
Netherlands.
■
Hightail's offering has HIPAA compliance certification, in addition to many security and control
features.
■
There is a strong focus on simplicity and user experience in the client UI strategy. The vendor
considers the user experience key to driving adoption within organizations.
Cautions
■
Hightail has been traditionally focused on SMBs. However, it has several notable large
enterprise deployments, and has been investing in this area.
■
Hightail's product lacks social collaboration capabilities, such as comments, ratings, tasks and
activity streams.
■
Native capabilities for back-end integration are limited, but further integrations can be achieved
by partnering with content connector providers, such as SkySync.
■
DRM encryption for shared files and content editing are not supported.
Huddle
Huddle (www.huddle.com), founded in 2006, is headquartered in London, and San Francisco,
California, with offices in New York and Washington, D.C. It provides a cloud-based secure store,
access, share, synchronization and collaboration service to enterprise and government clients.
Huddle's public version is a multitenant-hosted cloud and accounts for the majority of deployments.
Exceptions include Huddle IL3, which is a private stand-alone instance of Huddle (private cloud,
multitenant hosted) used by the U.K. government. File sync and share capabilities are part of a
broader suite, including document and project management; therefore, Gartner considers Huddle
an EFSS extension offering.
Huddle is a good fit for enterprises and governments that want to go beyond basic file sync and
share capabilities to empower their users with broader project management and team features, or
have already made investments in Huddle.
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Strengths
■
Huddle has built integrated, basic project management, task assignment and some social
capabilities into its consumer-user-driven interface.
■
Underpinning Huddle's platform is a recommendation engine that uses learning algorithms
based on workers' actions to select relevant files and push them to connected devices,
potentially to simplify work.
■
Huddle has FISMA, HIPAA and U.K. Pan Government Security Compliance accreditations.
■
The Huddle product is available in 15 languages, including English, French, German, Italian,
Spanish, Portuguese, Russian and Japanese.
Cautions
■
Huddle does not have a hybrid solution, and does not support the Windows Phone platform.
■
Huddle currently has hosting partners only in the U.S. and the U.K., which may raise data
privacy or compliance concerns for organizations in other countries.
■
References reported that the Admin console could be improved — for example, reporting
capabilities.
IBM
IBM (www.ibm.com) is a public company based in Armonk, New York, with extensive operations
around the world. The company's EFSS offering is an extension of Connections social software
products that are available on-premises and as public cloud offerings. In addition to the
Connections-based capabilities, IBM acquired Aspera in January 2014. Aspera provides high-speed
file transfer infrastructure technologies. IBM will attractive to customers using the Connections
products or looking for EFSS capabilities within the context of a larger social, collaboration and
content management suite.
IBM is a viable option for clients that have made, or are considering, investments in its Connections
product.
Strengths
■
The EFSS offering has good integration with the IBM Connections social software product,
which provides a wide breadth of collaboration and content management features.
■
Product and third-party package support is available from the large IBM ecosystem.
■
IBM supports on-premises, public cloud, private cloud and hybrid deployments (mixing onpremises and hosted cloud data).
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Cautions
■
IBM's EFSS capabilities are available primarily within the context of the larger Connections
product, which includes many features beyond EFSS.
■
Support for a wide list of related products and deployment models means that IBM's offering
can be more complex than those of competitors that serve more limited situations.
■
While generally satisfied with the product, some references reported frustration at the speed at
which new features, such as Mac OS support, become available.
Intralinks
Intralinks (www.intralinks.com), founded in 1996, is headquartered in New York, New York. It
operates globally, with offices in North America, South America, Europe and the Asia/Pacific region.
Intralinks enables enterprises to manage and share business content in external, complex use cases
with sensitive data and complex workflows needs, such as merger and acquisition (M&A)
transactions, loan syndication, asset management and life sciences clinical trials. In 2013, Intralinks
launched a general-purpose EFSS offering, broadening its market reach beyond its initial sectors
(finance and healthcare). Intralinks Via is a destination EFSS offering, available for general purposes.
Intralinks' EFSS capability is the core of other specialized products that offer specific vertical
functionalities (e.g., virtual data room in Dealspace). Intralinks is delivered through a private cloud,
with two colocated facilities that contain all data and processing (one active, one standby). A hybrid
architecture is supported with the client-attached storage, which allows data storage in alternate
locations (e.g., in local countries). The acquisition of docTrackr added plug-in DRM capabilities free
of charge.
Intralinks is a viable EFSS option for organizations that want to support EFSS in specialized use
cases requiring sensitive data sharing with external parties, particularly in the financial, legal and life
sciences sectors, with private cloud deployments.
Strengths
■
Intralinks offers broad integration capabilities with enterprise application servers and content
repositories through connectors, REST APIs and integration adapters to establish a secure
connection from on-premises to the Intralinks service.
■
In addition to the general-purpose EFSS capabilities, Intralinks provides specialized
applications built on top of the EFSS core to support specific use cases (e.g., financial sector)
focused on external content sharing.
■
DRM encryption is available to protect native Microsoft Office and PDF files, and enforce
control over download, copy, screen capture or printing. A protected view of documents in
browsers is also supported. Access to shared documents can be revoked and removed;
document unshare is available to revoke all accesses.
■
References indicated that Intralinks' EFSS implementation is usually smooth and easy, even in
complex deployments involving multiple parties and a heavily regulated environment. Vendor
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support, flexibility and responsiveness, along with the end-user experience, are rated highly
positive.
Cautions
■
Overlapping offerings with Intralinks Via sometimes make it complex to figure out which
products are most appropriate to support identified use cases.
■
The contractual approach and pricing have limitations. References sometimes indicated that
commercial terms were a major issue and that the vendor utilized product gaps as an upsell
tool.
■
Intralinks does not support embedded content editing in its application.
Microsoft
Microsoft (www.microsoft.com) is a publicly traded company based in Redmond, Washington. The
vendor rebranded its file sync and share product from SkyDrive Pro, which was launched in 2012,
to OneDrive for Business in January 2014. OneDrive for Business is a separate product from
OneDrive, which is targeted at consumers and does not have enterprise control capabilities.
OneDrive for Business is part of Microsoft Office 365. In April 2014, OneDrive for Business was
unbundled as part of SharePoint or Office 365 and is now sold also as a separate package. It is a
cloud-based service as a stand-alone offering, but can be run on-premises if deployed as part of
SharePoint 2013. Microsoft OneDrive for Business is considered an EFSS product extension,
because its file sync and share product is part of a broader portfolio (Office 365).
Microsoft is a good fit for companies that have invested significantly in Microsoft client devices and
server platforms, such as SharePoint or Office 365.
Strengths
■
OneDrive for Business has good integration with SharePoint, on-premises and in the cloud
(Office 365)
■
The product also has good integration with mobile and desktop Microsoft Office and
applications for document creation, collaboration and sharing.
■
There is the potential to integrate OneDrive for Business with other Microsoft products in the
ecosystem, such as Yammer, if they have been deployed.
Cautions
■
OneDrive for Business is Windows-centric; there is no native Mac client, and the iOS and
Android experiences are less rich than on Windows. OneDrive for Business has a 2GB file size
limit.
■
There is some confusion regarding how OneDrive for Business and SharePoint fit together.
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■
According to references, getting specific support for OneDrive for Business can be challenging,
because of Microsoft's large portfolios.
■
OneDrive for Business does not support selective wipe for mobile devices. Through Exchange
ActiveSync, IT administrators can remotely wipe the entire device.
Novell
Novell (www.novell.com) is headquartered in Provo, Utah, and has a presence in many countries. Its
infrastructure software portfolio is focused on endpoint management, collaboration, and file and
networking services. Filr, part of Novell's file and networking services portfolio, is an on-premises
solution focused on accessing and sharing files stored on corporate file servers, internally and
externally. It currently supports enterprise file servers and network-attached storage (NAS) devices.
Users can sync any folder from the back-end file servers, with permission granted by the Filr
administrator. Gartner considers Novell Filr to be an EFSS wraparound/extension, because it can be
part of Novell's broader collaboration offering. However, Novell Filr is also a stand-alone product
that works with Windows-compatible file serves or NAS devices.
Novell Filr is a good fit for companies that do not want to replicate files in the cloud, and need basic
sync and share capabilities with no editing capability.
Strengths
■
Being an on-premises solution, Novell Filr keeps data behind the firewall and removes the need
to replicate in the cloud.
■
Novell Filr is able to access file servers and NAS devices directly.
■
Its simplicity should make for an easy adoption by users.
Cautions
■
While Novell Filr can render documents through a viewer, there is no capability for editing them.
■
Beyond file servers and NAS devices, Filr back-end integration is limited and does not support
SharePoint.
■
While the Filr sync client runs on any Windows version (including Windows 8.1), the client
doesn't have Windows 8 touch interface capabilities.
ownCloud
ownCloud (www.owncloud.org) is an open-source-based company that provides enterprise file
sync and share software. According to ownCloud, there are 1.3 million users, and more than
100,000 downloads occur each week. The solution is available in a free-of-charge Community
Edition, and a paid-subscription-based Enterprise Edition. The Enterprise Edition provides
organizations with ownCloud software release certifications, tools and support. This includes
support for SLAs, plug-in applications, patches, performance tuning guidelines, troubleshooting and
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access to ownCloud experts. The license for the Enterprise Edition allows users to make code
changes without submitting them back to the open-source community. This EFSS product does not
use an additional repository for sharing files; instead, it integrates with original enterprise
repositories. ownCloud is a destination EFSS product that can be deployed on-premises (or hosted
in third-party clouds). Hybrid architectures are supported as well, integrating data from public and
private locations.
ownCloud is a good fit for companies that want to run EFSS on-premises, keeping control of and
managing the system and their files, leaving content in their current location. These companies are
also comfortable investing in — and have the skills in-house to work with — open-source software.
Strengths
■
The product is open source, which enables organizations to influence the direction of the
product and extend it.
■
Technical integration is offered with SharePoint, Jive, Red Hat and several other platforms, in
some cases, with joint commercial initiatives for selling ownCloud. ownCloud supports CMIS
and provides APIs to develop back-end system integration.
■
The storage-agnostic architecture allows IT to store files on corporate servers, externally hosted
servers or the cloud, such as Amazon Simple Storage Service (Amazon S3). IT can choose onpremises, hybrid or cloud storage, as it fits. Integration also is available for personal cloud
storage services, such as Dropbox and G-Drive.
Cautions
■
ownCloud is a small player in terms of employees and revenue, compared with other EFSS
vendors, and has limited experience with large deployments. Its geographical presence is
limited to the U.S. and Germany.
■
Security capabilities rely on third-party MDM and mobile application management products that
companies need to purchase separately. This includes selective remote wipe (available in beta
release) for mobile devices. Encryption of data at rest on the device is available natively.
■
References reported challenges when integrating the system with large complex operational
environments, in scaling up the deployment and in the process of updates/upgrades.
WatchDox
WatchDox (www.watchdox.com) is a private company based in Palo Alto, California, and founded in
2008. WatchDox maintains an international presence, with offices in Israel and the U.K. WatchDox
offers an EFSS destination product with enhanced security and content collaboration features. The
product can be deployed on-premises, in a public cloud or in a private cloud with multiple hybrid
options through a virtual appliance, and can be integrated with corporate applications through APIs.
WatchDox launched a freemium service, LockDox, in March 2014, enabling anyone to send a
controlled file to anyone else. Some of the unique elements of WatchDox technology include the
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secure viewers, apps and rights management features. Due to rich security and collaboration
capabilities, WatchDox has a growing presence in the enterprise market, especially in regulated
sectors such as finance.
WatchDox is a viable option for midsize and large organizations that are in regulated or in sensitive
vertical markets, have legacy infrastructures and content repositories (e.g., SharePoint), and have a
relatively mature mobility strategy (i.e., they have implemented EMM to some extent).
Strengths
■
WatchDox has exceptional document encryption (based on DRM) and controls on shared files.
The client UI offers an elegant user experience based on consumer-style design, while security
and administrative features are hidden to avoid negatively impacting the UI.
■
It offers rich content editing for complete mobile file productivity, including a secure viewer,
annotations on any document type, search, a local editor and app streaming for more complex
functions.
■
Collaboration capabilities are mature. References indicated that the product is user-friendly and
intuitive, and requires no training for the users to incorporate it into their basic workflow
processes. WatchDox can be integrated into complex workflows and business processes
without additional coding, programming or changes to the system.
Cautions
■
WatchDox is a relatively small player in terms of employees and revenue, compared with other
vendors. Supporting large on-premises implementations with complex requirements has been
challenging for the vendor on a few occasions.
■
Some references reported challenges in integration with third-party systems, particularly with
Active Directory and Web Proxy. LDAP integration is missing. References reported potential
lack of consistency between WatchDox's cloud and on-premises solutions.
■
Some references reported occasional fragility in the system. Frequent new releases to fix
problems sometimes introduce new challenges. A strong quality assurance (QA) process seems
to be missing.
Workshare
Workshare (www.workshare.com) is a private company headquartered in London, and founded in
1999. It has operations in EMEA, North America, South America and the Asia/Pacific region.
Workshare merged with SkyDox in November 2012. The company focuses on a document-centric
collaboration platform and has significant presence in regulated sectors such as legal, professional
services, finance and accounting, and pharmaceuticals. Workshare is a destination product, with
security and collaboration capabilities, available in public cloud or hybrid offerings.
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Workshare is a viable option for organizations with an ECM system that want to securely collaborate
on high-value content and documents, using a hybrid or public cloud architecture inside and
outside the corporate firewall.
Strengths
■
The user experience is elegant and simple, and helps drive rapid and pervasive adoption.
■
Enterprises that commonly work with complex and long documents likely will appreciate
Workshare's redlining and metadata scrubbing tools.
■
Workshare the product has a rich feature set to support group communication in social,
document-centric and co-authoring scenarios, with a focus on mobile productivity.
■
The product features content-aware data loss prevension controls at the content and metadata
levels. Metadata can be stripped from content in accordance with policy when documents are
shared via email, its mobile client or third-party online tools. This unique set of controls bolsters
the product's ability to prevent data leakage.
Cautions
■
Workshare is a relatively small player in terms of employees and revenue, compared with other
EFSS vendors.
■
Support can be problematic. The fast pace of development isn't supported with concurrent
documentation updates.
■
The product does not support CMIS integration, despite providing connectors to SharePoint,
OpenText and other content management platforms. There is no direct check-out function for
documents in Workshare.
Vendors Added and Dropped
We review and adjust our inclusion criteria for Magic Quadrants and MarketScopes as markets
change. As a result of these adjustments, the mix of vendors in any Magic Quadrant or
MarketScope may change over time. A vendor's appearance in a Magic Quadrant or MarketScope
one year and not the next does not necessarily indicate that we have changed our opinion of that
vendor. It may be a reflection of a change in the market and, therefore, changed evaluation criteria,
or of a change of focus by that vendor.
Added
This is a new Magic Quadrant developed in recognition of the growing maturity of the EFSS market
(see Note 1).
Dropped
No vendors have been dropped because this is a new Magic Quadrant.
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Noticeable Absences
The EFSS market landscape is crowded, with more than 100 vendors selling EFSS destination or
extension offerings. Of the vendors with EFSS offerings that did not qualify for inclusion in this
Magic Quadrant, many met all but a few of our inclusion criteria. The most relevant vendors are:
■
Barracuda Networks: It offers a consumer service where users get unlimited storage by
referring friends. The recently launched business service runs on Barracuda's data center,
connected to its storage products. Missing criteria: Availability date, total paid users, revenue
and geographic coverage.
■
BitTorrent: It provides synchronization mostly for consumers, although the enterprise market is
the target for later in 2014. Missing criteria: Sharing capabilities, security and management
features.
■
BoardVantage: Focusing on board meeting rooms, it addresses the needs of senior leadership
teams. It provides a higher value proposition and lower user volumes than other EFSS vendors.
Missing criteria: Total paid users, integration with LDAP and Active Directories.
■
BooleServer: Its focus is on a highly secure EFSS offering. Missing criteria: Revenue and
geographic coverage.
■
Code42: It offers an EFSS destination product built on its mature backup product. Missing
criteria: Revenue and required security features.
■
Cortado: Based in Europe, this vendor of print management solutions for virtual desktop
environments also offers EFSS products. Missing criteria: Revenue and geographic coverage.
■
Ctera Networks: It offers an EFSS destination product. Missing criterion: Total paid users.
■
Druva: With a strong focus on data backup and protection, this vendor offers an EFSS product.
Missing criteria: Revenue, installed base of the broader product bundling EFSS capabilities.
■
Globo: This enterprise mobility management suite vendor includes EFSS capabilities bundled
into its products. Missing criterion: Installed base for the broader product bundling EFSS
capabilities.
■
Good Technology: This enterprise mobility management suite vendor includes EFSS
capabilities bundled into its products. Missing criteria: Installed base for the broader product
bundling EFSS capabilities and PC client support.
■
Harmon.ie: It offers a mobile, single-screen collaboration product with bundled EFSS
capabilities. Missing criterion: Installed base for the broader product bundling EFSS
capabilities.
■
Hitachi Data Systems: This enterprise storage and content management vendor provides
bundled EFSS capabilities. Missing criterion: Total number of paid users.
■
HighQ: This vendor is based in Europe and provides solutions for secure file sharing, team
collaboration, data rooms, extranets and enterprise social networks to organizations worldwide.
Missing criterion: Geographic coverage.
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■
Litera: It is a content risk management vendor that recently launched EFSS. Missing criteria:
Revenue and references.
■
Nomadesk: This vendor, based in Europe, offers file synchronization and sharing capabilities
with security to the business professional services market. Missing criteria: Revenue and
geographic coverage.
■
OpenText: This leading content management vendor sells an EFSS destination product.
Missing criterion: Total paid users.
■
Salesforce.com: It offers leading cloud sales application services, with bundled EFSS
capabilities. Missing criterion: Product availability.
■
SAP: A leading corporate application vendor, its EFSS capabilities are part of a bundle (Mobile
Secure portfolio). Missing criterion: Installed base for the broader product bundling EFSS
capabilities.
■
SugarSync: This EFSS provider has a strong focus on synchronization. Missing criterion:
Deployments larger than 5,000 users.
■
Thru: This is a managed file transfer vendor with EFSS capabilities. Missing criteria: Revenue,
geographic coverage and installed base for the broader product bundling EFSS capabilities.
■
Vaultize: This vendor provides enterprise file sharing and secure access to corporate data with
mobile content management, bring your own device (BYOD) and data loss prevention. Missing
criteria: Revenue and total paid users.
Other vendors that offer EFSS products include Liferay, LogMeIn, Mezeo Software, Oracle,
OxygenCloud, Redbooth, Soonr, Soti, SpringCM, Symantec, TeamDrive and Tibco Software.
Inclusion and Exclusion Criteria
To be included in this Magic Quadrant, a vendor must meet the following criteria:
■
Offering: An EFSS offering for business.
■
Revenue: EFSS product and service revenue for 2013 must be more than $5 million.
■
Geography: Presence in at least two geographic regions, with some personnel dedicated to the
relevant product. No more than 70% of revenue may come from one geographic region.
■
Commercial availability: The EFSS product version generally available since 1 December
2013.
■
Packaging: Available as a separately billed, stand-alone product (destination), or have
capabilities bundled at no extra charge with a different product (extensions) from the same
vendor that has at least 5 million paid users.
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■
Total users: At least 200,000 active, paid users among all the organizations licensed to use the
product.
■
Largest deployment: At least one deployment with 5,000 users.
■
References: Five customers that have deployed the service or product for a minimum of six
months, with at least 500 paid users. Two of references must have at least 2,000 paid users.
■
Product capabilities: Features provided by partners must be tightly integrated with the
vendor's product and invisible to the end user. Mandatory features and capabilities for vendor's
offerings are:
■
File synchronization: Support for transparent and automatic round-trip data
synchronization between the devices and the cloud service/server. Synchronization support
for multiple devices connected to the service or system, for selected files or folders.
■
File sharing: Support for multiple levels of mobile file sharing among: (1) different devices
belonging to the same person; (2) different applications on the device; and (3) people inside
and/or outside the organization. Basic features for sharing include choosing the sharing
destination, inviting peers, emailing links to shared files, tracking file accesses, and
restricting access rights to selected users or user groups.
■
File access: To files in on-premises repositories by direct access or replication to a cloud
repository. Use of third-party connectors is acceptable, but native support is rated higher.
■
Mobile OS diversity: Support, through a local native application for at least two of the
following mobile OS platforms: iOS, Android or Windows (Phone and/or Windows RT).
Support for other platforms is optional.
■
Tablets: Support through native apps for at least two platforms — iOS, Android or
Windows (Phone and/or Windows RT).
■
PCs: Support for sync on Windows PCs, through a native stand-alone application. Web
browser or email client plug-ins, as well as support for Mac OS or Linux platforms is
optional.
■
Security: Includes user password authentication (requiring strong alphanumeric
passwords), lockout after a given period of inactivity, selective remote wipe of the EFSS
mobile app and related files on the device (removing features or disabling access to them)
and data encryption on transfer (with Secure Sockets Layer [SSL]).
■
Management: Integration with LDAP and Active Directories for authentication, single signon, group policies and centralized management tools that allow administrators to manage
synchronization and control the content, access rights and user activity. Integration with
MDM platforms is optional.
Optional product features and capabilities, not relevant for inclusion in this Magic Quadrant, but
considered when evaluating vendors and products are:
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■
Delivery model: Availability as cloud services in public or private clouds; as software products
deployed on-premises; or as hybrid deployments, with any combination of on-premises and
cloud elements. Support for more than one delivery model.
■
File transfer: Compression capabilities for transferring large files.
■
Content manipulation: Document viewing, editing, annotation, etc. in the mobile application
and/or browsers is considered optional, either through embedded native capabilities or through
third-party apps. Use of third-party editing, preview and annotation technology is acceptable,
but native support is rated higher.
■
Collaboration: Features that encourage collaboration between individuals (e.g., version control,
change logs, comments, tasks and activity streams). Mobile access to collaboration platforms,
such as SharePoint.
■
Integration: Availability of server-side APIs and integration capabilities for application
developers and mobile APIs. Productized integration with business applications (such as those
from salesforce.com).
■
Security: Includes data encryption at rest (files in the local folder), enhanced data encryption on
transfer (e.g., AES-128), data loss prevention (restrictions to applications that can open,
manipulate or send a file), DRM, policy enforcement (e.g., to restrict the access to cloud
services to sanctioned devices), access tracking and reporting. Containerization of data at rest
on mobile devices (possibly through partners); integration with Security Assertion Markup
Language (SAML) for enhanced authentication and access control; and integration with
enterprise-deployed public-key infrastructure (PKI) and certificate authorities' infrastructure.
■
Secure deployment: Availability of secure deployment options for cloud or host-based models,
third-party evaluations of data centers or data center certifications (e.g., SSAE 16).
■
Certifications, compliance and audit: Availability of official certifications for selected
regulations — e.g., FIPS 140-2, HIPAA, Sarbanes-Oxley Act and PCI compliance; formal thirdparty security evaluation, such as ISO 27001 or Service Organization Control (SOC) 2; or audit
in support of legal hold/discovery for Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests.
■
Terms and conditions: Standard contract language that states data ownership remains with
the client company, and clauses for guaranteed uptime with penalty or credit in case of service
outages.
Evaluation Criteria
Ability to Execute
EFSS is a relatively new market. Many of the technology providers represent new ventures with
high-risk profiles. Additionally, incumbent IT players in other markets are extending their established
products with EFSS capabilities in response to customer demands. The overall viability (including
financials), operations in multiple regions and customer experience is highly relevant for buyers to
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assess the Ability to Execute of new players. The product or service richness and maturity is,
instead, highly relevant for buyers that want to assess how well their IT suppliers are evolving
traditional products to meet modern EFSS requirements.
Table 1. Ability to Execute Evaluation Criteria
Criteria
Weighting
Product or Service
High
Overall Viability
High
Sales Execution/Pricing
Medium
Market Responsiveness/Record
Medium
Marketing Execution
Medium
Customer Experience
High
Operations
High
Source: Gartner (July 2014)
Completeness of Vision
The EFSS market originated from consumer trends such as smart devices, personal cloud services
and BYOD initiatives. Vendors with consumer backgrounds best understand the new imperatives of
people-centric, mobile and simple use cases. However, they need to adapt their strategies to
address enterprise priorities. Vendors with IT backgrounds understand in-depth enterprise priorities,
but need to adapt to meet the new expectations of IT users, led by consumer technology
experiences. Understanding the priorities, constraints and dynamics of the enterprise market is
highly important for buyers of EFSS offerings.
Although core file synchronization and sharing capabilities are standardizing across products, EFSS
vendors are specializing in related areas, such as data protection, collaboration, content creation
and business workflow. Therefore, the product strategy criteria are highly relevant for buyers to
identify vendors with a long-term vision that aligns with their company's objectives.
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Table 2. Completeness of Vision Evaluation Criteria
Evaluation Criteria
Weighting
Market Understanding
High
Marketing Strategy
Medium
Sales Strategy
Medium
Offering (Product) Strategy
High
Business Model
Medium
Vertical/Industry Strategy
Not Rated
Innovation
Medium
Geographic Strategy
Medium
Source: Gartner (July 2014)
Quadrant Descriptions
Leaders
Leaders provide mature offerings that meet market demand. They have demonstrated the vision
necessary to sustain their market positions as requirements evolve. The hallmark of Leaders is that
they focus and invest in their offerings to lead the market and affect its overall direction. Leaders
can be the vendors to watch as you try to understand how new offerings might evolve. Leaders
typically possess a significant, satisfied customer base and enjoy high visibility in the market. Their
size and maturity enable them to remain viable under changing market conditions. Leaders typically
respond to a wide market audience by supporting broad market requirements. However, they may
fail to meet the specific needs of vertical markets or other more specialized segments.
Challengers
Challengers have a strong Ability to Execute, but may not have a plan that will maintain a strong
value proposition for new customers. Large vendors in mature markets may often be positioned as
Challengers, because they choose to minimize risk or avoid disrupting their customers or their own
activities. Although Challengers typically have significant size and financial resources, they may lack
a strong vision, innovation or overall understanding of the market's needs. In some cases, they may
offer products nearing the end of their lives that dominate a large, but shrinking, segment.
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Visionaries
Visionaries align with Gartner's view of how a market will evolve, but they have fewer proven
capabilities to deliver against that vision. In early markets, this status is normal. In more mature
markets, it may reflect the competitive strategy of a small vendor, such as selling an innovation
ahead of mainstream demand, or of a large vendor trying to break out of a rut or differentiate itself.
For vendors and customers, Visionaries fall into the higher-risk/higher-reward category. They often
introduce new technology, services or business models, but may need to build financial strength,
service and support, and sales and distribution channels.
Niche Players
Niche Players do well in a particular segment of a market, or have limited ability to innovate or
outperform other vendors in a market. This may be because they focus on a particular functionality
or region, or because they are new to the market. Alternatively, they may be struggling to remain
relevant in a market that is moving away from them. Niche Players may have reasonably broad
functionality, but limited implementation and support capabilities, and relatively small customer
bases. They have yet to establish a strong vision for their offerings.
Assessing Niche Players is more challenging than assessing vendors in the other quadrants. Some
Niche Players could make progress, while others might not execute well or might lack the vision to
keep pace with broader market demands. A Niche Player may be the perfect choice to meet your
requirements. However, a Niche Player may prove to be a risky choice if it is moving against the
market's direction, which may put its long-term viability in question.
Context
Enterprise file sharing will enable higher productivity and collaboration for workers completing tasks
across multiple devices in their normal roles. Organizations investing in EFSS capabilities will gain a
modern and collaborative real-time workplace. This will help them reduce or avoid the inherent
security/compliance threats of storing enterprise data unmanaged on personal cloud services and
mobile devices. The business benefits are increased productivity, cost savings and data protection.
The sheer number and variety of vendors and offerings, coupled with the diversity of use cases and
user requirements, make it difficult to choose vendors and govern their services. Even when
organizations are looking for something simple, their needs often quickly develop into more
demanding requirements(see "Destinations and Wraparounds Will Reshape the Enterprise File
Synchronization and Sharing Market").
A single EFSS offering may not be enough to meet the needs of organizations with multiple usage
scenarios. They may need to use a relatively inexpensive EFSS product extension to enable users
to move documents onto media tablets. Simultaneously, they will need a more secure EFSS
destination product to support a sensitive, external collaboration scenario. The right approach
entails understanding user segmentation, acceptable use cases and policies, and identifying which
tools or capabilities will augment investments (e.g., in MDM). The ideal outcome provides enhanced
collaboration and a great user experience while enabling IT to contain risks and costs.
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Sharing assets and information in multiple endpoints, some outside the organization's control,
dictate the need for granular controls to enforce data access, use and protection policies.
Furthermore, in regulated markets, these tools must extend existing compliance safeguards.
Evaluating security and compliance risks will enable IT organizations to identify not only control
priorities, particularly for data at rest on the device and corporate server, but also service access
permission. Many offerings do not fully meet enterprise control needs for security, compliance and
management. Gartner expects to see improvements in this area in one to two years.
For example, based on the U.S. National Security Agency's PRISM (electronic surveillance data
mining program) activities, some organizations lack 100% trust in cloud solutions for which the
supplier holds the encryption keys and data. Some cloud suppliers are working to enable
mechanisms to put customers in charge of encryption keys.
Market Overview
The market for EFSS offerings, such as those provided by the 19 vendors in this Magic Quadrant,
has grown rapidly in recent years. Consumer devices and BYOD programs have driven workers'
adoption of cloud file synchronization, backup and sharing. Enterprises are often uncomfortable
relying on consumer services for a variety of reasons:
■
First, consumer services store corporate information on unmanaged infrastructures and can
synchronize data to multiple unmanaged devices.
■
Second, enterprises have no visibility into information sharing by employees.
■
Third, real security and compliance threats are inherent in their use for most IT organizations.
Increasingly, IT security, mobility and enterprise collaboration planners are not bent on banning
personal services. Instead, their priority is to establish control by deploying enterprise-class file
synchronization and sharing capabilities that secure mobile content and manage sharing and
collaboration.
One hundred EFSS players come from a variety of markets and technology backgrounds, using
different approaches and business models. Some stand-alone players focus on EFSS, while
building out their platform capabilities and integrations with related products. Others have entered
the EFSS market from adjacent areas, such as content management, managed file transfer,
collaboration, storage and backup, workspaces and enterprise mobility.
Key drivers for the rapid growth of this market are the relatively low technical barriers to entry. We
expect to see more EFSS offerings in the next 12 months, because large IT players will enter this
market through acquisitions or will broaden their product portfolios.
The EFSS market is not without inhibitors, however. Major roadblocks exist in regulated industries
— i.e., the cloud provider model isn't trusted, the provider may be located in another country or
under different legislation, or the model may require specific certifications. Another issue is the cost
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of services, such as EMM for mobility deployments, which drives adoption of EFSS as extensions in
other products, rather than adopting EFSS destination products.
The cost of EFSS can be high, especially for public cloud offerings that include cloud storage in the
bundle. Prices are dropping, in part, because large cloud providers, such as Google and Microsoft,
offer a large amount of cloud storage for a limited (e.g., time) price or free of charge. Most offerings
are based on a subscription model (per user, per month) and price range between $15 and $35 for
an average public cloud configuration. Another trend is the demand for integrating EFSS products
with enterprise back-end products, such as ECM and business application servers. Established
vendors (e.g., EMC) tend to support back-end integration through proprietary connectors. Although
a growing number of vendors have adopted CMIS for integrating selected products, adoption by
ECM vendors is still limited. CMIS adoption is likely to grow, because custom connectors are
limited, partly due to the difficulty of maintaining them and to the emergence of Web services and
REST APIs. We expect more EFSS vendors will embrace CMIS.
During the next three years, the EFSS market will continue going through rapid transformation.
While the adoption of destination and extension products continues, enterprise file sharing
capabilities are increasingly becoming commodities. EFSS extensions will develop and mature in
most IT products, with "good enough" support for simple use cases. EFSS destinations will expand
into broad suites that meet business process requirements and vertical use cases.
Large vendors will acquire specialized vendors, resulting in market consolidation. By 2017, part of
the EFSS market will be absorbed into adjacent markets (e.g., collaboration and content
management). A few destination players (including future entrants) will transform their EFSS
offerings to include cloud, collaboration, content editing and creation, analytics and mobility —
basically the modern workplace enabled by the Nexus of Forces. By 2017, less than 10% of today's
destination vendors will offer stand-alone products, and the rest of the vendors will have been
absorbed into adjacent markets, such as collaboration, ECM, mobility and storage.
Through 2014, Gartner expects a dynamic marketplace with usage far outpacing monetization.
Total software revenue worldwide (including licenses, SaaS/cloud-based apps, maintenance and
technical support) will be approximately $400 million by year-end 2014. We expect revenue to
exceed $500 million by 2016, with more than 70% of the total software revenue generated in North
America.
Gartner Recommended Reading
Some documents may not be available as part of your current Gartner subscription.
"MarketScope for Enterprise File Synchronization and Sharing"
"Destinations and Wraparounds Will Reshape the Enterprise File Synchronization and Sharing
Market"
"Evaluation Criteria for Enterprise File Synchronization and Sharing"
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"Magic Quadrant for Enterprise Mobility Management Suites"
"How Gartner Evaluates Vendors and Markets in Magic Quadrants and MarketScopes"
Note 1 Related MarketScope
This research expands the research presented in "MarketScope for Enterprise File Synchronization
and Sharing," published early in 2013. In addition to the vendors mentioned in that MarketScope,
we include AirWatch, Alfresco, Dropbox, Google, Huddle, IBM, Intralinks, Microsoft, Novell,
ownCloud and Workshare in this Magic Quadrant. Good Technology, Nomadesk and OxygenCloud
included in the MarketScope did not qualify for inclusion in this new Magic Quadrant.
Evaluation Criteria Definitions
Ability to Execute
Product/Service: Core goods and services offered by the vendor for the defined
market. This includes current product/service capabilities, quality, feature sets, skills
and so on, whether offered natively or through OEM agreements/partnerships as
defined in the market definition and detailed in the subcriteria.
Overall Viability: Viability includes an assessment of the overall organization's financial
health, the financial and practical success of the business unit, and the likelihood that
the individual business unit will continue investing in the product, will continue offering
the product and will advance the state of the art within the organization's portfolio of
products.
Sales Execution/Pricing: The vendor's capabilities in all presales activities and the
structure that supports them. This includes deal management, pricing and negotiation,
presales support, and the overall effectiveness of the sales channel.
Market Responsiveness/Record: Ability to respond, change direction, be flexible and
achieve competitive success as opportunities develop, competitors act, customer
needs evolve and market dynamics change. This criterion also considers the vendor's
history of responsiveness.
Marketing Execution: The clarity, quality, creativity and efficacy of programs designed
to deliver the organization's message to influence the market, promote the brand and
business, increase awareness of the products, and establish a positive identification
with the product/brand and organization in the minds of buyers. This "mind share" can
be driven by a combination of publicity, promotional initiatives, thought leadership,
word of mouth and sales activities.
Customer Experience: Relationships, products and services/programs that enable
clients to be successful with the products evaluated. Specifically, this includes the ways
customers receive technical support or account support. This can also include ancillary
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tools, customer support programs (and the quality thereof), availability of user groups,
service-level agreements and so on.
Operations: The ability of the organization to meet its goals and commitments. Factors
include the quality of the organizational structure, including skills, experiences,
programs, systems and other vehicles that enable the organization to operate
effectively and efficiently on an ongoing basis.
Completeness of Vision
Market Understanding: Ability of the vendor to understand buyers' wants and needs
and to translate those into products and services. Vendors that show the highest
degree of vision listen to and understand buyers' wants and needs, and can shape or
enhance those with their added vision.
Marketing Strategy: A clear, differentiated set of messages consistently
communicated throughout the organization and externalized through the website,
advertising, customer programs and positioning statements.
Sales Strategy: The strategy for selling products that uses the appropriate network of
direct and indirect sales, marketing, service, and communication affiliates that extend
the scope and depth of market reach, skills, expertise, technologies, services and the
customer base.
Offering (Product) Strategy: The vendor's approach to product development and
delivery that emphasizes differentiation, functionality, methodology and feature sets as
they map to current and future requirements.
Business Model: The soundness and logic of the vendor's underlying business
proposition.
Vertical/Industry Strategy: The vendor's strategy to direct resources, skills and
offerings to meet the specific needs of individual market segments, including vertical
markets.
Innovation: Direct, related, complementary and synergistic layouts of resources,
expertise or capital for investment, consolidation, defensive or pre-emptive purposes.
Geographic Strategy: The vendor's strategy to direct resources, skills and offerings to
meet the specific needs of geographies outside the "home" or native geography, either
directly or through partners, channels and subsidiaries as appropriate for that
geography and market.
Additional contributions to this research were provided by Chris Silva, Bryan Taylor, Guy
Creese and Tom Eid.
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